The present invention has essentially for a subject matter a conveyor for containers, such as for example cups.
Machines are already known which include a conveyor for containers intended to receive for example any food product, the said machines allowing automatic filling and convering of the containers.
The conveyor was hitherto constituted by two endless chains provided with cross-plates connected to both chains and provided with openings adapted to receive and retain the cups by their edges.
Thus, the conveyor allowed the carrying of successive rows of cups which ran past various successive processing stations located above the conveyor.
Understandably, the cross-plates provided with the openings are only suitable for containers of a quite definite diameter. When the containers to be processed are of a different shape or a different diameter, it is of course necessary to replace all the cross-plates by other plates provided with openings corresponding to the new shape or size of the containers which it is desired to process. This, understandably, requires considerable and very expensive work, to say nothing of the fact that as many sets of cross-plates should be available as there are shapes of containers to be processed, which is hardly practicable.